


Home

by Valmouth



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: threesome fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 13:44:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa assumes that this will end, and he suspects that that will happen sooner rather than later but he will keep going back, as long as Roger and Mirka want him. Set after Roger's loss at Wimbledon 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these three people, or to the other real persons, places and events that are mentioned herein. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it. This is entirely fictional.

The first moment that Rafa really hesitated was when he raised his hand to open the door.

He hefted his bag like any other day, lifted his fist, and it was poised for motion but then he just stopped. And thought. And felt afraid.

And so he sat down on the porch step and dumped his kit bag on the path as he leaned his head back and stared at the door.

Going home was not a hard task. He did it as often as he could. Whenever he could get the time off. Home was where he’d been heading since the moment he won his match. It just hadn’t occurred to him to wonder if he’d find the door locked against him.

And for something like this?

He looked around as a car drove by, light gouging into his eyes for an instant before it was gone.

No doubt the driver had seen him and it had looked suspicious, this rumpled person sitting on the porch step of a very nice house in Wimbledon. If Rafa was unlucky, the driver would have recognized who was currently renting the house, and he would look like a sad and desperate fan.

He was, in a way. Couldn’t help it.

In fact, he’d thought at first that that was all this was- just being a fan. Getting starry-eyed because he was noticed, because he got a smile or a few nice words.

Rafa could smile about that in the dark, sitting on warm stone and feeling the tiredness spread through his body but it was a fact, one he’d acknowledged several times to himself and to those people who were close enough to ask him about it.

The door opened abruptly and cut off any further musings.

He looked up, expecting anything between ‘what are you doing’ and ‘we need to talk’. He steeled himself for it. Philosophical about it all.

Anyway, it had had to happen sometime. On some day they’d find out that he’d been right all along, this wouldn’t work, and Rafa would move on because they’d get bored or angry or the baggage would just get too much to deal with.

Mirka sat down beside him. “He is not here,” she said gently.

Rafa hunched in on himself. Couldn’t help that either.

“Rafa,” she said, and laid her head on his shoulder, “Not because of you. He does not want to see anyone. He will come back tomorrow.”

“Si,” Rafa said bitterly, “Also, tomorrow I go to practise for semi-final, no? He will feel better when he come home to see?”

“You never did anything wrong,” she said, “You won. Congratulations, by the way. I watched the match.”

Rafa pulled himself away.

She didn’t fight it, just sat up straight and pushed her hair behind her ear.

Rafa cast a quick look around, watching the street and the windows for any prying eyes. They were in the open and it was so dangerous for them to do this. They never did this out of doors. It wasn’t safe.

But there she was, sitting beside him, the way she would have sat beside Roger.

Roger.

Rafa felt his heart twist in his chest.

“Where is he?” he asked.

Mirka shrugged. “You know how he is. He will come back. He always come back. No?” She tipped a smile at him but he was looking at his hands, rubbing his forefinger over the lines on his palm.

She sighed again and he heard a faint thud as her head went back against the brickwork. She even muttered something. It sounded irritable and tired, and it occurred to him that she probably didn’t want to be here, sitting on the front doorstep, having this discussion.

Again.

They’d had it so often, in various places, hotel rooms, on the phone, over the internet, with Mirka trying to pry his emotions out of him with ever-increasing frustration.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, suddenly concerned. She looked exhausted herself, her hair pulled back and no make-up, in a crumpled shirt and jeans.

It was never Roger who sat with him in these moments.

Well, rarely. Sometimes. Usually in tandem with Mirka, standing quietly to the side and watching his wife and their lover. No, Roger played a different game.

He had moments, small moments, when no one else was watching. It was just the way he smiled, the way he’d nod once, the casual way he could lean against Rafa’s shoulder and not care who saw them. It was the way he could turn a silence into conversation, light and inane and something that Rafa could respond to how and when he liked.

But he was never there when Rafa choked on his conscience. That was Mirka’s time.

Poor Mirka. It was borne in on Rafa that she probably had it worse, being stuck in the middle and trying to make it work. Trying to keep them both sane and healthy.

If it was Roger, he could have just nudged his arm. Maybe shrugged. The words would have gone unspoken. But this was Mirka, and he adored her.

So he uncurled himself a little, just enough to put his arm around her shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Sorry.”

She huffed ruefully and let him be for a few seconds before she said, “Can we go in now? Charlene wants you.”

Rafa groaned and removed his arm.

She grinned wickedly at him. “I get a rest too,” she said, “We agreed.”

“How Roger can go somewhere and I have to look after the baby,” he grumbled.

“Welcome to my world, Rafa.”

She got up and held out her hand.

It was slim but capable, still slightly rough. It was the kind of hand that was used to gripping a racquet, or another hand. There was a time when Rafa might have blushed to think about what else that hand was good at gripping but he was too tired, too lethargic to even contemplate it.

Not during a grand slam, anyway. Toni had given him a very specific talk about this.

Poor Toni, who turned a blind eye and didn’t understand but accepted because Rafa was, apparently, old enough to make his own mistakes in these matters. Poor Toni, who didn’t tell Rafa’s oblivious parents or Rafa’s oblivious uncles- the people that mattered most in Rafa’s life.

He got up slowly, one hand on the wall as his knee ached.

Mirka frowned at him as she reached for his bag.

He smacked her hand away petulantly and gathered his things himself. He didn’t mind her interferences, but he didn’t want to be fetched and carried for. He prided himself on never taking his reliance on them for granted.

At the back of his mind, he knew why- it was the comfortable moments that would hurt most when they were over. That hand gripping at him, yes, he would miss that, but if he allowed her too close, how would he guard against the time when she decided that she had had enough?

Which, he thought silently, was bound to happen.

Myla was asleep already but Charlene was still wide awake in her cot, peering gravely at Rafa as he peeped into their room and waved at her.

He kissed her and cuddled her, breathing in the warm smell of clean baby and thinking of how much bigger she was, how much heavier. In a month it would be her first birthday, and in another year, it would be her second. She would be so much more knowing then.

And what would her parents tell her about her Uncle Rafa, who stayed the night in their room and loved her because she was her parents’ daughter?

No idea. He had a vague belief that he would be gone by then. It would all get too much. It was already too much. Roger was leaving the house more, though Rafa could not always be in residence to let it affect him. Mirka was getting tired of bridging their distances.

Rafa was getting tired of feeling so guilty.

“Sleep well,” he murmured, and landed one last peck on her nose before he left her there in her cot.

He found Severin in the kitchen, mixing something for his stomach and complaining about something he had eaten. Rafa rolled his eyes and dropped into a chair.

Severin knew. All of Roger’s team knew. Most of Rafa’s team knew. Some of their friends knew. None of their families knew. Rafa suspected that a couple of the players had guessed.

What was he to do?

Severin left him alone and went to watch television in the other room. Football from the sounds of it, though Rafa was not in the mood for the noise and the excitement.

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay? Your knee...”

“Fine,” he interrupted, and kept it short.

He could almost feel her sigh, feel the itch in her palm to slap him soundly across the face. He smiled humourlessly at her. Sometimes he didn’t mind provoking her; it was a test.

But she calmed down and put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to sleep. Will you come upstairs?”

And he could say ‘no’. He could say that tonight it would be best if he went back to the house his team were in. He could spend another night with them before his parents arrived, before Xisca arrived. Toni would probably thank all the saints in heaven for finally giving his nephew some sense.

But Roger and Mirka were leaving in the morning.

Mirka knew. He could tell by the look on her face that she knew. She had pried this out of him before, this conflict. So all she had to do was hold out her hand and waggle her fingers at him.

“Come,” she said.

And he went.

As always. As he always would, as long as they let him. And if they got tired of him, or bored, or if the baggage got too much, he would keep following until they finally told him to stop. Because they were home, and the only thing he wanted to do at the end of the day was go home.

She didn’t try to touch him in bed. She didn’t even look him over, the way she sometimes did with that cat-like smile on her face as she let her eyes linger as he undressed. It made his blood run hot and cold and in those moments, he could guess fervently what kept Roger so devoted to this woman when there were other beautiful women lined down the street waiting for just one smile, a few nice words.

Some men too. Rafa had been one of those.

But in these moments, when he was exhausted, and when Roger’s absence was an ache shared between all three of them, she didn’t play the seductress the way she was so good at. She just smoothed his hair when the lights were out, caught his left hand and drew it to her mouth to breathe something soothing in Swiss German over the knuckles.

He fell asleep to the faint sounds of the television downstairs, and Mirka’s gentle breathing.

Later that night he woke up to the dip of the mattress, the rustle of the sheets. He blinked blurry eyes at the sight of Roger sitting on the bed beside him.

Mirka wasn’t there.

Rafa reached for her automatically, looking around when he encountered nothing.

“Myla woke up,” Roger said shortly.

Rafa sat up slowly, too tense to bother with the soreness in his muscles. Eyes fixed firmly on Roger, he waited for the verdict.

It didn’t come. Roger opened his mouth, frowned, shook his head, turned away and got up.

Rafa jerked forward and grabbed his hand. “Please,” he said.

It was unnecessarily loud.

Roger blinked, looked down at his captive fingers. “I was going to change,” he said mildly, “Are you okay?”

Rafa let go and sat back, fingers gravitating towards his mouth as he bit his nails in familiar fashion. He never took his eyes off Roger.

They didn’t say a word while Roger went about his business. If he minded that Rafa was there, on the night of his shocking defeat, in his bed, he didn’t give any indication. He was tense, yes, and from certain angles he looked haunted, but he moved with his usual confidence albeit more carefully.

They said nothing even when he pulled back the covers and got into bed beside Rafa.

Rafa opened his mouth impulsively. “Sorry.” It flowed out. “Sorry. I want you will win... it was hard match, no, and I know, you are best, Rogelio, you are greatest, such a phenomenon, no, and I want you should win, but...”

“Rafa, it’s okay.”

“No,” Rafa said regretfully, “No okay. I know.”

Roger looked at him carefully.

Rafa held his breath.

Roger sighed and the blank expression fell away to leave the sadness, the pain, where it was supposed to show. “You felt like this,” he said, “After Roland Garros last year? Losing like that. It’s supposed to be my place, you know, what I do so well, but I couldn’t even think what to do. I couldn’t move properly. I couldn’t get my shots. Is this what you felt last year?”

“I feel more worse,” Rafa told him, “I feel so angry. Is clay. For me, clay, Roland Garros, is- is like home, no? I hate you because you win.”

Finally Roger smiled. “I don’t hate you,” he said, and laid a hand on Rafa’s knee.

“Maybe I no hate,” Rafa backpedalled.

Roger laughed, then, and he reached out to cup Rafa’s jaw in his hand. He kissed him.

It wasn’t gentle, nor was it kind, but it was needy and intimate and all the things that made Rafa groan as he leaned into it and gave in.

The want was always just beneath the surface with them. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d known Roger and didn’t want him.

Every ache of this was worth it, every lie, every twinge of his knees or his conscience or his heart were worth the feel of running his fingers through the hair at the back of Roger’s head and then tightening them firmly for better grip. Better angle.

He knew exactly how Roger played this game, too.

“I am glad for you,” Roger panted.

Rafa grinned, predatory and wide. It was the first one since he had heard the news and he was so relieved, so turned-on with need and hope and renewed energy, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to press against Roger’s shoulders.

He urged him onto his back, licking possessively along the line of Roger’s lips. He didn’t miss the wince as Roger wriggled awkwardly into a comfortable position but whether it was the thigh or the back, Rafa didn’t know. He didn’t care. Not when Roger smelled of grass and soap.

He bit down on the juncture of neck and shoulder, daring for a split second to bruise before his better judgement kicked in.

He heard the door open, and he looked up, already breathing a little hard, to find Mirka watching them with hooded eyes.

He’d never understood why she let them, why she had ever agreed to this, whose idea this was- it certainly wasn’t his. But he thanked God for it, every time he waited with bated breath and then saw her smile, cat-like and sensuous; leaning back against the door as she beckoned him to go on with an ironic wave of her hand.

“Show me,” she invited, her accent getting stronger with every heady syllable.

He didn’t mind, peeling off the covers to leave them both bare, stripping off any and all clothes before gently, gently, lying beside this man that he had wanted from the first moment they’d shaken hands at the net.

From the first defeat, and then even more on the first win.

They usually didn’t waste time on niceties. Mirka teased them for it but they were both so tired that night, so on edge, that Rafa didn’t bother with more than a trail of kisses over Roger’s chest, a light lick to his left nipple that brought Roger arching up against his thigh.

“You have practice tomorrow,” Roger grated out.

It was a warning, a way out if he wanted it. Roger knew Toni’s verdict on these matters.

Rafa ignored him and leaned down. Sideways on the bed, positioned just right so Mirka could see every movement of his hand, the way he closed his eyes before he slid his mouth down over Roger’s cock.

He counted it as a personal victory that he heard a sharp intake of breathe. It could have been Roger. It was more likely to be Mirka.

He looked up at her, playing to her flushed cheeks and over-bright eyes. The way she bit down on her bottom lip. He sucked until his cheeks hollowed, staring straight at her, and he heard Roger whimper and felt the movement as Roger’s hip started to move.

Tried to move.

The frustrated whine as Rafa’s weight on his midsection kept him from writhing or twisting or otherwise injuring his back any further.

Rafa stopped sucking for long enough to lift his mouth, licking his lips obscenely as he felt Roger’s hand on his back, sliding up between his shoulder blades, stroking along the dip of his spine. Digging into the sore muscle of his shoulder.

Rafa sighed and angled his head, laid it down on Roger’s stomach and he idly watched his hand stroke roughly up and down, dipping down further to tease just a little, just enough, just so he could have the pleasure of enticing Mirka to join them.

He didn’t look up to see her kiss her husband. She always did. It was a ritual in this strange threesome. She kissed Roger first. Always. A silent reminder of choice, though not necessarily of priority.

Rafa was used to it. He assumed that it was right, in the same way that he assumed that this would end some day. That Mirka and Roger would grow tired or bored or the baggage would get too much, and maybe Charlene and Myla would want to know about Uncle Rafa and why he slept in their parents’ bed, or perhaps it would reach a time when they simply had no reason to meet without arousing the kind of suspicions that would lead to the rest of the world finding out.

So he didn’t look back, but trailed his finger over the line of hair on Roger’s stomach before following it with his mouth.

Roger’s hand was already on his ass when Mirka gently eased him upright.

“Kiss me,” she said.

And he did. As always. Because she was pretty and because he wanted her. And because he adored her.

She was breathing hard into his mouth and he knew Roger was watching, assessing them with the same look that Roger used on a tennis court, weighing up all options and flipping through game plans. The very idea made Rafa hard, that one day he would find that Roger wasn’t thinking of how to beat him on a court but of how to fuck him when they got off it.

So long, he thought, it had been so long between nights like this.

Mirka was already straddling Roger’s hips and sinking down, letting out a moan against Rafa’s neck at the sensitive touch of flesh in flesh.

The sex didn’t last long. It couldn’t. Roger was thrusting, or trying to thrust, with Mirka trying to tell him to hold still and let her do the work, and somehow, one or the other had their hand on Rafa’s dick for long enough to bring him to the edge.

Perhaps it was that strange brokenness, the thought that even in this private moment, they were concerned for him. The very fact that he mattered was enough.

It was Roger who said his name, who looked at him from under hooded eyes and urged him on with graphic suggestions of what he was going to do to Rafa the next time, how hard he was going to fuck him, what he would expect Rafa to do for him.

Rafa ended up finishing before they did, shuddering before going boneless beside Roger, but they didn’t last long either.

When it was over, Rafa laid his head carefully on Roger’s pillow, watchful in case this was still to be denied. In case Roger was still too raw. But Roger only lifted a hand to stroke his back again, absently fingering the sweaty strands of hair on the nape of his neck.

Mirka was the one who got up and switched off the lights. She was the one who untangled the sheets and covered them all. She was the one who curled against Rafa’s back and gave a contented sigh before draping an arm around his waist.

“If you win on Sunday,” Roger said suddenly, “How long before you can come to Basel?”

 Not ‘after’, Rafa reflected, always ‘if’. The wound was not healed with sex. Or with kisses. It would linger, like every other wound they suffered in this strange relationship.

He could feel the easy rhythm of Mirka’s breathing and he relaxed.

Sleepy and sated he kissed the light bruise on Roger’s shoulder that he had made earlier and replied, “I come home maybe in two weeks. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Home. Rafa shut his eyes and let the thought lull him to sleep. At least for a little while longer, home would not be barred to him.


End file.
